Last saturday (9/15/07) was the first ever twoshirt.org FREE garage sale, and it was so much better than I expected.

I have to give credit: the whole thing was Bryan’s idea. His neighborhood has a yard sale every year and he had the idea of hosting a twoshirts giveaway at his house to take advantage of the traffic, and man was it a blast.

We gave away all kinds of stuff: dishes, cd’s, electronics, furniture, a cello, a violin, artwork, and 15 bags of assorted clothing. People couldn’t believe it when they found out everything was free! we had some great feedback and some very excited “shoppers.”

Bryan fired up the grill and we gave away hot dogs and home-made cookies and brownies (thanks teri!) and had a generall great time. Thanks go out to everyone who came out to help - there were about 10 of us total - and thanks to everyone who supports twoshirts.org. We can’t wait to do it again!

We've officialy begun beta-testing the new site, so for those of you who have been invited her to participate, please put eveerything through it's paces. We need you.

By that, I mean, create your profile, post items, claim itmes, flag content as "suspicious," (just for fun, go on...), start new groups, subscribe to each others groups, post new group messages, start new topics in the forums, reply to others' topics, comment here on the blog...everything. I need you to utilize each and every feature of the site and let me know what does and doesn't work.

This is your chance to thrash me and this site and get nothing in return but my heartfelt gratitude. : )

Let the fun begin.

Well, we've had about a dozen of you helping us beta-test the new site over the course of the past three weeks and I'm glad to say we're about done! We've uncovered lots of little (a big!) bugs during this time, and we couldn't have done it without you. So to all you folks who put the new site through the wringer...thank you!

We will be transferring accounts from the old site later this week, and hope to even transfer some of the content as well. If any of you would like to help with that, just let me know - I could use a few volunteers. After that, we'll go live!

Thanks again everyone! Once the new site goes live, please tell all your friends about twoshirts no matter where they live. The more people that get involved, the better this will be.

Regards,
Jason

Thank you Ben Stein...

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3623803n

We're very excited to announce that the new twoshirts.org is up and running! The creation of the new site has been several months in the making and has involved plenty of hard work by lots of people including some of the twoshirts users out there who helped us beta-test the site before going live.

If you have an old twoshirts account from either the original Columbus, Ohio forums or the Houston, Texas forums you can login to the new site using the following instructions:

1. Use your old twoshirts user name along with a generic password you should have received via e-mail to log-in.

2. Change your password to something more secure.

3. Setup your new profile! Have fun with this!

Thank you to everyone for the support you've given for this project. We're excited about this new phase of our little experiment and look forward to getting to seeing you participate!

We have a few new surprises up our sleeve for the coming weeks as we work hard to make twoshirts a genuinely grass-roots effort to cultivate generosity across the country.

Regards,
Jason

Just wanted everyone to know that Twoshirts now has its own page on Facebook! We're excited to use this amazing networking tool as a means for getting the word out and empowering people all over Columbus, Ohio and throughout the United States to make a difference in their communities through the power of generosity.

Check out the page by clicking here. Take a moment to sign up for your own Facebook account and leave us a message. If you're already on Facebook, help us spread the word by leting your friends know about Twoshirts.org!

Twoshirts.org is now part of the Technorati network! We're excited about utilizing this powerful tool to spread the word about the cultivation of communities of generosity all over the United States. Check out the twoshirts Technorati profile by clicking here.

There's a new way for you to support the Twoshirts community by using some of the web's most popular online communities. Social networking has become a worldwide phenomenon, with the most popular sites claiming a total membership of well over 170 million users. Now you can use these websites to promote our own community of generosity here at Twoshirts.org

If you're already a user at sites like YouTube, Facebook, Virb, and Digg, then you already know how powerful these tools can be for spreading the word about news, articles, and websites. Why not use these social networks to help us spread the message of generosity? You can click on the "Networking" icons on the front page, or click here to go to the Support Twoshirts page and read about how you can use these websites to spread the word about Twoshirts.org.

Get started today; join these sites and invite your friends!

You probably already know that January is out month to try and reach 1000 FREE items on Twoshirts.org. But what you really want to know is, what will be the prize for the user who posts the most items? Well, we're happy to announce...

The user with the most items posted by 11:59PM on January 31 will receive $50 worth of gift cards from Dave and Busters! Take some time to have a night out on Twoshirts.org and have fun with the arcade and games.

Keep up the posting...we have a long way to go to reach 1000 items and we're excited to see who wins!

We're happy to announce the winners of our January inventory drive challenge!

On January 1st we announced a month-long campaign to drive up inventory here at Twoshirts.org in order to jump-start our effort to create a community of generosity in Columbus, Ohio - and you guys responded in a big, big way!

Our outrageous challenge was to reach 1000 items, and even thought we didn't reach that ambitious goal we did reach 607 FREE items which is far beyond our original expectations for the first official month here at Twoshirts.org!

We can't thank you enough for your enthusiastic participation! We believe this gives the Twoshirts community a chance to begin impacting the city of Columbus with radical generosity starting now!

On January 20th we announced the prize for being the user with the most items posted to give away free: two $25 gift cards to Dave & Busters, a local restaurant and game center here in Columbus.

One interesting number that popped out at me when reviewing our January website traffic stats was this: the state with the second highest number of visits is New York, with a whopping 138! Closer inspection reveals these visits are overwhelmingly clustered in and around the city of New York (New York, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Sunnyside, etc.).

But here's the thing...I don't know anyone in New York. At least, I don't think I do.

So the question is, who are these people from New York who are lurking around Twoshirts.org? And why don't they sign up? A Twoshirts community in New York would be fantastic!

Some of you may have noticed that Twoshirts member DoctorBravo has started a Twoshirts OSU Chapter for those of you who are OSU students. We're excited to see that users like DoctorBravo and Sarron are taking the initiative to start groups and make a difference where they live and work!

You can check out the Twoshirts groups by going to the Groups page here. Join a group near you, or star your own group if there isn't one already.

Hello. My name is Jason Coker and I'm a book-a-holic. I've spent countless amounts of money on Amazon.com over the years. I've obsessively joined a variety of book clubs and purchased titles I didn't really need all to satisy my insatiable hunger for more books.

Not any longer. I'm kicking the habit. I still love books, and will continue to read them at a rapid rate, but I'm no longer going to buy any more books unless I absolutely have to for school.

I've decided to turn my resolution into a project on Twoshirts. Accordingly, I'm excited to announce the Twoshirts Common Library Project. Starting tonight I'll begin posting as many books as I can to Twoshirts.org in the hopes of creating a commonly owned library of fiction and non-fiction titles that all the Twoshirts members can enjoy and share with one another.

Will you join me?

Here's what I'm doing:

• I'm ruthlessly going through my personal library and posting every book I absolutely don't need for work or school. Even the books I love. I've decided others should be able to enjoy these great books without having to buy them.

You probably already know that our February challenge is to see who can successfully invite the most new members at Twoshirts.org using the "Invite your friends" feature of your profile menu. Well today is the day we announce the prize for the winner...

(Drum roll please)

The member with the most successful invites by 11:59PM on February 29th (leap year day!) will win a $50 gift card for Starbucks! This is just our small way of showing appreciation for spreading the word about Twoshirts.org.

Of course, we think Twoshirts is cool enough that you should invite all your friends whether there's a prize or not - but more coffee never hurts (in my humble opinion)!

Keep an eye on the standings to the right: at this very moment Briabn Stephenson has a commanding lead with 20 successful invites, but gregknake and DoctorBravo are catching up with 10 and 7 respectively.

I'm sure by now you're all aware of the prize for the winner of the February Top Inviter challenge. Well, Twoshirts member Teresa (user name norret), has generously offered to sweeten the prize package for those who are competing.

In addition to the first place $50 dollar Starbucks gft card, norret has added an additional $50 worth of gift cards. Together we agreed it would be fun to add prizes beyond first place, so the prizes will now be as follows:

First place: $50 Starbucks Gift Card
Second Place: $25 Home Depot Card
Third Place: $20 Gift Certificate for Josiah's Restaurant in Grove City
Fourth Place: $15 Gas Card
Fifth Place: 3 $5 Gift Certificates for Grandstand Pizza in Grove City

In the event of a tie at any position, the person with the most successful giveaways will win. And in case anyone is wondering, Jason Coker is excluded from any of the winnings... : )

Thanks Teresa for your generosity! You're an inspiration for us all.